Society through a Comic Lens

By Guest Blogger, Marianne Mason, Federal Information Librarian, Research and Library Instruction at The University of Iowa Libraries

Comic books are not really books and often not comic, but are serialized graphics-based stories expressed through political and cultural rhetoric. Think Maus, a story of the Holocaust. Think Peanuts’ ethics and theology.

O.K., not all comic books or graphic novels are Pulitzer Prize winners or speak to a deep sense of ethics. The pure entertainment value of storytelling through sequential art can be worthy on its own merits. However, the comics can inform, persuade, and encourage new behaviors in readers. This is the purpose of comic books authored by U.S. government agencies.

Used as social program marketing tools for decades, the government-authored comic book format has been used to promote program benefits (Social Security Administration) and to educate (Consumer Product Safety Commission) using superhero/anti-hero models like Sprocket Man (reviewed in our April 9, 2010, blog post “Just for Fun: Sprocket Man!” ) and El Gato to capture the attention of the targeted audience and cross educational boundaries.

The Army made instruction manuals measurably more appealing to combat personnel in PS Magazine by incorporating sexual innuendo in both dialog and character illustration such as in this Preventive Maintenance manual shown below:

In October 2011 the University of Iowa hosted a scholarly symposium entitled “Comics, Creativity, and Culture: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives”, a by-invitation-only event for scholars, artists and creators of the art and literature of comic books. The Symposium spawned a semester-long series of complementary university sponsored events ranging from art exhibits, radio broadcasts, discussions, and interactive workshops for educators and K-12 students. The University of Iowa Libraries contributed to the celebration by creating a Comic Book Café based on the Japanese “Manga Café” model. Several specialized library collections, including Government Information, pooled their best examples for the café.

As the U.S. Government Information Librarian, I found that this event gave me an opportunity to draw attention to the characteristics and range of government authored comic books. Creating a government comics research guide gave me an opportunity to do a thorough survey of the collection, access the content of the print collection and provide links to digitized collections from the broader government information community, including this latest online booklet from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Preparedness 101: A Zombie Pandemic”.

In addition, the research guide provides database access to many Congressional hearings and reports in the UI collection from the 1950’s linking juvenile delinquency to explicit violence in comic books.

Whether quirky or more profound, all reflect changing societal norms that drive public policy initiatives.

On October 4th an “egg timer” book talk called “Thought Balloons: Talking about Comics”, was held in the Café for creators and readers of comics to share insights and stories about connections to comic book literature. One reader commented that when she and her boyfriend merged their comic book collections, she knew their love was here to stay!

Marianne Mason has worked with Government and legal resources in several law libraries and universities and at University of Iowa Libraries since 2001 as the regional librarian for the State of Iowa. Her idea of a fine vacation involves clear water, forests, and the absence of machinery/technology noise. She knows how to knit socks, two-at-a-time, toe up.

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1936. Ten cent comic books were generally in the Golden Age (pre 1950s) and 25 cent comics were from the Bronze Age (1970s).
You are not as likely to see the type of illustrations
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Great article!! My partner and I communicate from the point of view of musical art, nonetheless it relates to almost everything. I simply experience just as much art as I possibly can, and when creating my very own I simply try and let it all out. I’d like the impact and mindset, although not the boundries and restrictions. It would appear that as lots of people age and become “experts” at stuff, they lose their own imagination and ignite. The particular “finding” is fully gone. At forty nine myself, I have managed to avoid this aspect of aging, and so life is a lot more fascinating for this!

Thanks, Daniel! We issued an open invitation to librarians in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) of GPO to submit guest blog posts, and Marianne was the first to take us up on it. We are delighted, and hope to see more guest bloggers in the future!

Reblogged this on Alaskan Librarian and commented:
Today I’m testing the reblog function on WordPress, something I didn’t realize they had. This is a discussion of how the US federal government has used comic books to promote everything from bike safety to army equipment maintenance.